


The Hemp Incident

by iwtv



Series: Silverflint from tumblr [7]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: Campfire stories, Fluff, Gen, Just Read it :), M/M, Maroon Island, Recreational Drug Use, Ridiculous, billy and james make fun of silver, teapots filled with weed, who is a marijuana virgin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-26
Updated: 2016-10-26
Packaged: 2018-08-27 05:04:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8388298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwtv/pseuds/iwtv
Summary: The Walrus boyfriends find some weed in a teapot and get stoned. Oookay, this bit of insanity has been with me for MONTHS and I just had to write it. This isn't really a slashy story perse, but hilarity and various antics ensue, followed by kisses. Season 3/post season 3-ish, I guess. I am putting this with my silverflint series because it's from Silver's pov and as I said there are kisses. Comments always highly welcomed, or say hi to me on tumbles at iwtv2007 or flintfiction. <3





	

“Mr. Silver, what should we do with the extra timber for the night?”

John turned to address what he hoped was the absolute last question of the day. He’d been overseeing the building of their defenses on the south beach since early this morning and now it was finally quitting time. John gestured off to his left, where both Walrus men and the Queen’s men were putting the finishing touches on a shed.

“Take them over there and throw a tarp on in case it rains,” he instructed. “How much remains to be erected?”

They told him how many yards of spikes were left to put in place for the morning and Silver went ahead and instructed who was to to do what at first light. After one final look around the beach John gratefully headed back towards camp, feeling the day’s labor in his muscles and bones and especially on his left hip where he threw most of his weight nowadays.

He sat down around the first campfire he came to, where he happily took a few drinks of the water one of the Queen’s men offered him. They spoke briefly about the day’s work and then the man left, no doubt to go into the main part of camp for supper.

Eating sounded like a splendid idea. John was about to stand and do the same when he noticed something sticking up at an odd angle in the ground across from him. It looked…ceramic?

With a groan John pushed himself off the tree stump that served for a seat and bent over to pick the thing up. It was indeed ceramic; a teapot, nestled rather purposefully in the dirt. It was white with a delicate blue floral design. No doubt it was cargo Mr. Scott’s men had brought back here when he was still alive and providing for this place. But why was it here?

Brows furrowed, John removed its top with an index finger and thumb got a whiff of something that wasn’t remotely like tea. It was strong enough that he reeled back from it, wrinkling his nose. After another second he recognized the herbal scent.

“What the hell…?”

John dipped his fingers in the pot and pulled out a strong-smelling and somewhat sticky mass of leaves and stems, tinged with red. He brought it to his nose again.

“Hemp weed,” he muttered out loud.

His eyes drifted away and to the camp behind him. Surely it belonged to the medicine woman who had helped him with his leg. He’d heard of the plant’s medicinal uses before and had seen it at an apothecary’s shop when he was an adolescent but he’d never used it before. He’d also heard of people smoking it because of the feelings it produced, similar to opium.

“There you are.”

Silver twisted to the sound of Billy’s voice. Billy strode up beside him, his shirt off his chest and slung over a shoulder. He was sweaty and looked as though he’d just moved a mountain, though he never looked remotely tired to John. The man’s stamina could outlast the Walrus’s top ten men combined.

“Flint wants numbers on what’s left and when you think the south side will be finished,” said Billy. He saw the teapot and inclined his head at it.

“What’s that?”

Ignoring his first bit of information, John held up a nugget of the hemp to Billy.

“Hemp weed, I think. I found it just sitting here on the ground. Do you think one of them has misplaced it?”

Billy gave him a rare toothy grin.

“Misplaced that? I seriously doubt it. Came out here for a late night smoke and bloody forgot it is more likely.”

“I hear it can warp your mind if taken in the right dosage.”

“Dosage?”

Billy jabbed the word at him as though it were foreign. Then he grinned.

“What?” John asked, feeling annoyed. “Forgive me for not being an expert on a damn weed.”

“You never smoked it before, have you?”

John hesitated, then frowned up at the bosun.

“No. I have not. Which I would think is a good thing, is it not?”

“You’ve listened to one too many stories about it then,” replied Billy smoothly, still wearing his grin.

“Billy!”

Both of them startled and turned as Flint strode towards them, looking as sweaty as Billy and as tired as John felt.

“I told you to find Silver and–ah.”

For some reason John dropped the weed nugget back into the teapot and covered it, setting it down beside him but not before James caught the motion. His eyes followed it, then met his quartermaster’s.

“Numbers, please.”

Not really wanting to stand just yet John remained seated as he went over his best estimates of their remaining time frame. James nodded and gruffed out his approval, hands on his hips as he caught his breath. As soon as John was finished James nodded to the teapot, eyes questioning. John didn’t touch it.

“That? It’s nothing. Just something one of the villagers left behind.”

Billy snorted and John shot him a look. 

“It’s hemp weed,” Billy said.

James’s brows squished together. He turned from Billy to John.

“Hemp weed? Let me see.”

John sighed and lifted the teapot to him. James took off the lid and stuck his nose over it. He made the same face John had,which had John hiding a smile.

“Jesus,” said James. “It’s certainly fresh. Whoever had this must have grown it here.”

“Yes, well,” said John, finally rising off the tree stump with another groan. “I’ll take it with me back to camp. It probably belongs to the medicine woman or shaman.”

“He’s never smoked it before,” said Billy to James.

James looked at him again. His right eye twitched, which usually signaled impending violence but this time John saw some…humor there? He immediately felt defensive again.

“Oh for Chrissake Billy,” he retorted, feeling flustered. “Who gives a damn anyway? If I want to bliss off and forget everything I’ll get drunk. I see no reason to indulge in something that has the same end result as lots of liquor.”

It had sounded perfectly reasonable to him, so John grew even more flustered when both his companions were now stifling grins at him.

“No, he hasn’t smoked before,” agreed James, still looking at him. “But perhaps he should.”

John scoffed at him. “No. And fuck you both.”

Fifteen minutes later John was staring at the plump, rolled up piece of paper pinched between fingers. They’d used a torn-out blank page from one of James’s books he had tucked in his belt. Billy had rolled it since it seemed he knew the most about the matter and after a brief and admittedly entertaining discussion with James about their past experiences with the herb, Billy was deemed most qualified.

John stored that information away for later, already plotting ways to get back at the bosun for this entire state of affairs.

“Just relax,” said James, sitting to his left on a log while Billy sat to his right. “It’s similar to smoking tobacco, except when you inhale, you suck it all the way down in your lungs.”

“What? How the fuck is that any different from smoking tobacco?” John asked.

“Here,” said Billy, taking it from him. “I’ll show you.”

He stuck a twig into the fire they’d rebuilt and pulled it way once the flames caught. John watched, suddenly very interested, as Billy put the twig to the tip of the paper and puffed on it until the flames caught. Then he blew out the flame and inhaled. John watched as his chest rose and then fell, thick white smoke leaving his mouth and the entire process executed very smoothly.

Billy turned to him, smugness gleaming in his eyes.

“There. That’s how you–” 

Billy went into a coughing fit immediately, barely able to choke out his last words.

“Do it?” John offered for him, patting his back. Billy, red-faced and still coughing, glanced up at him and nodded.

As soon as John turned and met James’s eyes they both dissolved into fits of laughter.

It was his turn next. John pinched the thing again, looking to James this time and shocked to see the humor still evident on his face, probably the longest John had ever witnessed such an expression since he’d known the man.

“Go on then,” said James. “Just be very careful,” he added.

John took those words to heart as he delicately put the paper to the end of his lips. It was damp from Billy’s lips before him. He very, very slowly began to inhale. A rush of warm smoke sucked into his mouth and down his throat and he abruptly stopped inhaling. 

“Don’t breath out yet!” James exclaimed from beside him.

John obeyed, eyes going wide as the smoke seemed to expand in his lungs.

“All right. Exhale,” said James.

John did so, waiting for the inevitable coughing fit, but he only coughed a few times and turned triumphantly to Billy.

“You shit,” Billy muttered. “I got excited. Leave me alone.”

“And pass it on. You’ve let it go out,” said James, plucking the rolled-up paper from him. He did as Billy had done and re-lit it with a twig from the fire. John found himself twisting towards James, eyes watching him excitedly.

James’s green eyes flashed to his briefly–shit-full of confidence–and he took the thing much more casually between his thumb and index finger, hiding most of it in his palm as he inhaled quickly. His chest puffed out as he kept the smoke in, then exhaled. He let out a baby cough once, twice, three times and John snickered as James struggled not to disintegrate into Billy’s raging coughing fit. 

James handed it back to Billy. The second time around was better for everyone. John smoked it with more confidence this time, though he was still careful not to inhale too much. Billy, on the other hand, sucked on the thing until John could hear the paper crackle, then let out another enormous pillow of white smoke, enough for both he and James to breathe in and get high just from that.

James make a joke out of it, poking fun at Billy and wondering out loud what else Billy was good at sucking on. John leaned back as Billy flicked a burning twig at James, who swatted at it. John said it was the way a woman would hit. That got him a hard punch in the arm.

The hemp went around three more times, until John was burning his fingers trying to hold onto what was left of the paper.

“Ah, shit! Here, I’m done with it,” he said. His words sounded slurred to him. No, wait. Had he even spoken them? Or had he only thought them in his head?

“What the fuck,” he muttered out loud. He turned to his right to see if Billy had heard him.

Billy was looking into the rising sparks from the fire, mouth slightly ajar and eyes transfixed, as though he was seeing something else. John concluded that Billy had not heard him speak.

John turned to his left. Had he handed the hemp to James? James had nothing in his hands but was laughing at Billy. His face was red and his eyes were like slits.

“Jesus, you look drunk,” said John, reaching out and poking him in the arm for no real reason.

James scowled at him the way a child might, swatting at his finger. 

“Me? You should see your eyes,” James snickered. His words were coming out as if in slow motion. “You look like one of those orientals. Perhaps we should sail to the Orient and see if you’ve been misplaced.”

John positively burst out laughing at that, even though the jest was at his own expense. He laughed and laughed until his sides hurt and tears were squishing out the corners of his eyes. James’s laughter beside him sounded deafening, like a lion roaring at him, which he also found incredibly funny.

“Shut up! Please, stop!” he begged, struggling to catch his breath. He had to look away from James. He turned instead to Billy, who was tugging on his sleeve.

“Guys, I think I heard something in the woods there,” Billy said, squinting and pointing off into the darkened trees.

“Did you know,” said Billy in a hushed tone, “That they tell their children this island is haunted by a pack of rabid wolves? Do it to keep them from running off at night.”

John looked over to James, who was stifling another wave of laughter. John turned back to Billy and waved at him to come closer.

“Billy! I have to tell you something.”

“Huh?”

Billy, even though they were sitting side by side, leaned in so that John could whisper in his ear. John said nothing but instead waited as James rose very quietly–teetering unsteadily on his feet–and made a wide arc to come up behind Billy.

“I think I might have caught a glimpse of the wolves,” John whispered into Billy’s ear. “As a matter of fact, I think they may very close to our camp this very moment…”

At that moment James stuck his finger in his mouth, then stuck his finger in Billy’s ear and twisted it. Billy leapt to his feet, shouting curses and whirling around to face his attacker.

John had never laughed so hard in his entire life. James laughed so hard he went down on a knee, holding his side. Billy looked positively enraged for roughly a few seconds before also dissolving into a fit of laughter. Then John watched, bemused, as Billy plowed into James, tackling him to the dirt and proceeded to enter into a wrestling match with him. They rolled around like hogs. John followed their progress, suddenly aware that night had developed around them.

He paused and took in the landscape and the many tiny orange specs of torches and other campfires stretching out into the camp and the beach. It was all suddenly so beautiful to him against the backdrop of the night sky.

James and Billy had settled down and were disentangling themselves from one another, setting up on the ground. John joined them. They both lent a hand to ease him down. 

John didn’t know at what point they had all decided to lay down on their backs and stargaze. How long had it been? A few minutes, surely. But it felt like hours. He had no concept of the time, and for once he didn’t really care.

Billy was saying something. John turned his head on the grass towards him.

“I kissed Rachel first, then her friend Susan. We were all about fifteen, I’d wager.”

Ah. One of those conversations.

“What about you John?” James asked him. “Any frolicking adventures in your youth with the opposite sex?”

“A few,” said John. “Nothing much different than Billy’s, although I did have a more productive encounter with a member of the same sex once,” he said.

What the fuck? Even as the phrase tried to scold his mind John simply didn’t care in the moment. And neither did his crew mates. Billy spoke about a few blow jobs here and there and James confessed to the same. They fell into a comfortable silence, listening to the tree frogs and crickets, until John felt James shift beside him. John turned to see James facing him, propped up on an elbow. A soft, almost nostalgic look had come over him.

“Ever done anything recently with a crewmate?” he asked.

John smiled slowly and turned towards him. He licked his lips experimentally and watched as James followed the motion.

“Do you want to kiss me, captain?”

“Mmm. Perhaps.”

“Hey!” came Billy’s voice from John’s other side.

“They’ll be no messing around on this grass,” he declared, not breaking the mood but if anything encouraging it, because he leaned over John to speak to James and James bent over John and kissed his bosun on the lips.

John could suddenly hear his heart beating in his chest and ears, could hear the sighs and soft smacks of lips inches above him. He hummed softly and closed his eyes.

The world went invisible and gently swayed behind his eyelids. He felt so relaxed he could have sunk into the ground. Everything was perfectly fine in this moment, as bizarre as it was, it was also somehow…good.

He felt fingertips brush against his chin and John re-opened his eyes. It took a moment for everything to shift back into focus, but when it did everything consisted of James’s face an inch in front of his own. John could taste his breath in the air. James bent forward and kissed him. John hummed deeply, letting his lips and tongue and spit mingle with his captain’s. He tasted sweet, with a slight touch of smoky hemp. John couldn’t help but to laugh silently into his mouth, teeth clacking against James’s.

James pulled back and gave him a lop-sided grin, then fell back onto his back.

John didn’t really remember when they decided to get up, put out the fire, and each go to their separate beds, nor did he quite recall stripping down and falling asleep. The morning was quite a different animal, and for several minutes John wondered if he hadn’t simply passed out from exhaustion and had dreamt the entire night.

But by the time he washed and stepped outside into the morning sunlight he knew none of it was a dream; he could still hear Billy and James’s laughter and he could still taste the hemp on his tongue. He licked his lips and remembered other lips, as well. It momentarily paralyzed him. What was that? Why had it happened? He had no answers that satisfied him so instead he shrugged and remembered that it all had been good.

Yes, good. He rolled the word around in his thoughts, finding that it fit quite easily into them. Good, like the taste of so many things had been last night. He smiled to himself and went about the day, not bothered in the least by his leg or the men’s complaining, or anything else. Good.

***

I smoke two joints in the morning  
I smoke two joints at night  
I smoke two joints in the afternoon  
It makes me feel all right

I smoke two joints in time of peace  
And two in time of war  
I smoke two joints before I smoke two joints,  
And then I smoke two more

~Sublime, “Smoke Two Joints”


End file.
